NEW DELHI MUNICIPAL COUNCIL Vs. RAM KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner NDMC by this writ petition impugns the award dated 9th January, 2004 of the Labour Court, holding the respondent workman to be an employee of the petitioner NDMC and further holding his services to have been terminated without compliance of the provisions of Section 25F of the I.D. Act. The termination of the employment of the respondent workman was thus held to be bad. However, since the respondent workman was found to have failed to show appointment to a particular post on which he could be reinstated, the Labour Court granted the relief only of payment of Rs.1,00,000/- by way of lumpsum compensation to the respondent workman. The respondent workman has not challenged the award.

(2.) It was the case of the respondent workman before the Labour Court that he was appointed as a Heavy Motor Vehicle Driver with the petitioner NDMC at a salary of Rs.2,500/- per month with effect from 1st November, 1994 and continued to so work for the petitioner NDMC till 1st February, 1997 when his services were terminated without giving any reason and he was simply asked not to come on duty from the next day. The petitioner NDMC contested the said claim by contending that the respondent workman was not employed but was engaged on the basis of a verbal contract and was obliged to complete 50 trips in a month to get Rs.2,500/- per month at the rate of Rs.40/- per trip and with an incentive at the rate of Rs.100/- per trip for extra trips and a penalty of Rs.50/- for lesser trips. It was further contended that though there was a post of driver to which appointments as per the Recruitment Rules were to be made but the petitioner could not pass the said test.

(3.) The Labour Court found that there was no dispute that the respondent workman had worked with the petitioner NDMC for two and a half years i.e. more than 240 days continuously. The Labour Court further found that the petitioner NDMC had failed to produce any document to show that the respondent workman was appointed on contract basis for a particular work and for a particular period. The plea of oral contract was disbelieved.